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Recent headlines have touted the massive cuts at the U.S. Department of Education under the second Trump administration, and one watchdog group says the efforts were sorely needed, calling the agency “the quintessential unnecessary, bloated bureaucracy.”
The recent 69-page report from Open the Books, a group focused on government fiscal transparency, details cuts in payroll, hotel spending, PR agencies, marketing consulting services, and even $64,309 for “newspaper publishers,” all of which were Politico subscriptions from 2021 to 2024.
Some $3.5 million for “parking lots and garages” from 2021 to 2024 also “plunged to $168,000” under Trump in 2025, according to the report.
The cuts are part of a pledge Trump made during his 2024 election to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. The department is working to minimize itself by creating new partnerships to shift programs to other agencies, and consolidate spending to give states more programmatic discretion in their spending, the report states.
“The administration has taken significant executive actions to restructure the department, cut waste, reduce spending on DEI and root it out of the university grants and operations,” Christopher Neefus, spokesperson for Open the Books, told The College Fix.
The group’s report stated the cuts are necessary, calling the agency “a progressive darling with a large cottage industry of advocates it has itself funded over the decades.”
“Eliminating ED for good will take courage and resolve, but such a victory would strike at the very heart of the progressive ideology that relentlessly and uncritically seeks to expand the size and scope of the federal government,” Open the Books wrote in its report.
“Multiple partnerships with other Cabinet-level agencies to shift responsibilities out of Education are also under way,” Neefus said. “The Department of Education is shifting some of their duties to the Department of Labor, Department of Interior, Health and Human Services, and the State Department to make the Department of Education smaller.”
Earlier this week came news that the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights duties will shift to the Justice Department and its special education office to the Department of Health and Human Services.
That was just the latest in downsizing moves at the department under Trump.
In 2024, the Department of Education employed 4,245 people, according to the report. Data obtained by Open the Books in April 2025 confirmed the department shrank significantly in fiscal year 2025; headcount dropped by 1,517 to a total of 2,670, a 36 percent decrease, and payroll dropped by roughly 30 percent.
Neefus said the cuts are justified, pointing out that the headcount at the agency had been relatively flat since 2000, but spending skyrocketed 749 percent by 2024 while student outcomes remained stagnant.
“In fact, year over year, the Nation’s Report Card sees children backsliding in reading and math,” Neefus said.
More education money was spent in 2025 however, “largely due to massive increases in Pell grant spending, which increased $6 billion year over year,” according to the report, which added that Pell grant spending must be reformed.
“The administration has yet to complete its plans to shift student loans out of the agency,” Neefus said.
Neefus told The Fix that “President Trump’s executive order directs Secretary McMahon to dismantle the department within the limits of what’s possible under current statute.”
“In order to truly restore the founding vision and return education to parents and states, Congress must act,” Neefus said.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said, “Instead of filtering resources through layers of federal red tape, we will empower states to take charge and advocate for and implement what is best for students, families, and educators in their communities.”
Asked to weigh in on the topic, education expert Adam Kissel of the Heritage Foundation told The College Fix that “the Department of Education should be abolished.”
Furthermore, “authority over education should rest with states, localities, and parents,” Kissel said. “The deeper the cuts, the better.”
“The administrative cuts are largely irrelevant to American classrooms and colleges,” Kissel said. “I do wish the civil rights office had enough staff who actually want to address the very large number of discriminatory DEI programs across the country.”
Grants containing the words “social justice” or “equity” cost taxpayers between $144 million and $174 million between fiscal year 2021 and 2024, according to the report, noting that although Trump took an aggressive anti-DEI stance, $62 million in such funding was still spent in 2025.
“The burden is on the Department of Education’s defenders to demonstrate whether half a century of spending and regulation has actually improved education in America,” Kissel told The Fix.
“To the extent that Congress desires federal education spending, federal loans, and civil rights compliance, these areas should be administered by other agencies,” Kissel said.
The American Council on Education declined The College Fix’s request to comment on the cuts to the Department of Education.
“The United States saw the birth of the Model T, won World War II and landed on the moon – all before the Department of Education became its own federal agency,” Neefus said.
MORE: Education Department to shift civil rights, special education duties to other agencies
